"I want to find the water that will wash this whole damned slate clean..." - Boy Sets Fire, Still Waiting for the Punchline, from the album "After the Eulogy"

Cataract resin is late this week. It's been late in the past, but usually because I couldn't find the time in between working and studying to write it. This time was different. I was extremely close to giving up. Not just giving up the column. Giving up everything. Severing all ties to friends and family. Quitting my job. Becoming nothing. This time last week, I was on the very brink of dispair. In order for you to fully understand what I was going through, it is necessary to explain in a little depth how I deal with emotional trauma.

You may remember in a previous column I spoke about anger management. About letting out all your anger in a single wave of raw energy. Then focussing that energy into something constructive. This is what I do to expell the vile feelings I store within. Through writing Cataract Resin every week, and colouring comics, or excelling at Streetfighter Alpha 3, I am able to stem the tide of anger that washes over me constantly during the week. This time, it didn't happen though, because there was another factor that had not been present before: Apathy.

I am twenty two years old. A month or so ago I finished my full time education for good. No more school. No more college. No more university. Great, you would think. Not so. Now a fully paid up member of the "real world", I got a job working as a web-site programmer. The pay is not that bad, but I have no desire to gain material wealth, so that is inconsequential to me. The work itself is soul-destroying. For eight hours a day, I sit chained to my desk in a perpetual zombie-state, bashing out fragments of code that serve no purpose, and chatting on line to people I would trade anything to be with rather than be stuck in the office. The projects themselves have little or no value whatsoever, usually simply serving to increase another despicable company's pointless stocks of currency. There is no educational value present, as experimental programming is frowned on. "Thou shalt do only that which has been done before since time immemorial. The Company cannot afford to pay thee to develop innovative ways of producing output. Thou shalt be bored shitless all day, and have little or no incentive to try." 

At first I coped with this ridiculous farce by simply not working. I'd browse the internet for interesting or humourous content, anything to avoid the mind numbing ASP-monkey work that I was supposed to be doing. On my travels, I discovered the Astronomy Picture of the Day website, and started learning all I could about astronomy and cosmology. Sure, if anyone found out, I wouldn't get paid, but I'd rather get paid nothing to learn something than get paid any amount of money to be bored shitless. As time wore on, I found my self doing less and less actual work and more and more browsing on company time. And then a terrible realisation struck me. This was it. This was my life. No way out. No "Back to school" after the summer break. No "Just earning money in the holidays". This was it. My life had been put on pause, and would not be restrated until I was 65. When this dreadful thought struck me, my first reaction was panic. I had to DO SOMETHING! after a while, this feeling subsided, and I was left with nothing but apathy. Why bother doing anything? I'm stuck now. That's the way it is, right?

And so my anger was building up, but the apathy was blovking its release. but the more anger that built up, the more shit was going to hit the fan when I finally released it. The growth of the apathy, however, was directly proportional to the growth of the anger, therefore I would never find release. This all happened last week. Last week I was twenty one years old. On Sunday 30th June, 2002, I became twenty two years old. Twenty two. This did not help matters at all. I thought to myself, I'm getting old, times running out, but what can I do? and so I was driven deeper and deeper into my depression. The final nail in my happiness' coffin was my degree.

Now, as I have discussed some months previous to this, I do not believe that grades mean anything. Exams are flawed, as anyone can swot up and remember facts for exams. Coursework is flawed because people that are more than capable of producing the desired results very often do not have the motivation to produce those results. The only reason I went to university was to learn. I didn't want to gain a piece of paper with some long words on it, I didn't want to gain useless letters after my name, I didn't want to be photographed in a ridiculous gown and mortar board so that my parents could frame the photograph and brag to their friends. I simply wanted to learn. And I did learn. I learned a great deal. The most valuable lessons did not consist of Java Programming, Neural Networks or Fuzzy Logic. They were life lessons that stuck with me for a long time. If I hadn't have been to university, chances are I would not be writing this now. As a person, I developed more in my 4 years at university than the 18 years that preceeded them. So I don't care about grades. So why was I worried? My parents are inhuman. They have always seen me as some sort of child prodigy, gifted with some insane amount of intelligence. That may be true, but it makes it all the more disappointling for them when I don't apply myself... and that happens incredibly frequently. Every single school report I have ever received has been emblazoned with the words "Could do better". It's like a catchphrase.  Shit, I reckon my epitaph will read: "Karl Smith - He could have done better". It's true, of course, I could do better. I only ever apply myself when I have a high interest in the work. And by the third year of my course I had lost all interest. If I'd have tried, I would have received a First Class degree with no problem. But I did virtually no work and skipped class most of the time. So in the end I got a 2:1 (that's a B average, if I'm not mistaken). Now, most people would be happy with this grade (I'm indifferent of course - see above). My parents, I suspect, are bitterly disappointed. Admittedly, their reaction has been better than I expected. However, last week, I did not know my degree grade, and so the fear of excommunication from my family was prevalent.

And so last week, there I was. Stuck in a dead-end job that I despised, fearing my parents would never speak to me again, feeling old, hating the world and beginning to think that there was not a damned thing I could do about it. I was on the brink of despair. So what brought me back? I'll tell you. Cataract Resin brought me back. I read through some old columns and I realised that I was becoming the think I hate the most. I was becoming a quitter. I've lost count of the number of times I have been disgusted by lazy people who sit on their fat arses all day, watching nothing but white-trash shit on TV and believing everything they read in gossip magazines. They are the kind of people that cannot cope with problems, and so convince themselves that said problems do not exist. Equally disgusting to me are those people that sit and bitch and whine about  how hard they have it and how nobody understands them and that instead of actually being strong and overcoming their depression they're going to jack it all in. And I was becoming one of those. I could not let this happen.

And so I stopped at took stock of my life. I threw my damned apathy out, and got fucking angry. Sure, I may be in a job I hate, but that's going to change in a few weeks, when I quit and find a better one. OK, so my parents may be disappointed, but I will not let their shallowness get to me, and I WILL maintain my relationship with them. Sure, I may be getting older, but with age comes experience, and I'll be damned if any drunken 15 year old nu-metaller is going to upstage me on the dancefloor. Old I may be, but I reign supreme.

And finally. I still hate the fucking world, I can't think of any way anyone could like it. Sure, it's a horrible, horrible place. But Jesus fucking Christ, there's something I can do about it. Every week, for the past six months, I have written an article that has made people stop and fucking think. My reader-base may not be enormous, but if I manage to get just ten people to change for the better, they in turn may convince ten more and so on and so forth, until the fucking world is not horrible anymore.

So fuck yeah, I can change the world. And Cataract Resin is the first step.